White Supremacy and the Narcissistic Cult of Self

Selfies, supremacy, and the loneliness of being better than everyone else.

A stylish influencer sits alone in a sunlit café, phone raised just-so, angling for the perfect selfie.

There was a moment the other day that caught me off guard. I was walking past a café window and saw a woman perfectly lit by late afternoon sun. She stood, arm extended, lips pursed in practiced indifference. Her phone’s lens captured a curated version of reality: her outfit, her latte, the soft golden glow behind her. She clicked, paused, reviewed, clicked again. All around her, the world moved. She was still. Not really there.

I don’t know why it stuck with me. Maybe it was how alone she looked while performing connection. Or maybe it’s because I recognized something deeper, something unsettling, in that moment. A snapshot, not just of a person, but of a culture.

We live in a time where the self has become the center of the universe. Not the self, as in the soul, the being, the interconnected web that holds us all together. But a self - an image, a brand, a commodity.

And I can’t help but see the ties between this obsession with individualism and the roots of white supremacy.

White supremacy, at its core, is not just about racial hierarchy. It’s about disconnection. It says: I am better than you. I am separate from you. I must dominate you to secure my value. It thrives on isolation; on hoarding power, resources, attention. It feeds a culture where being “right” is more important than being in relationship. Where competition trumps community. Where success is measured by how many people look up at you, not how many people stand with you.

Sound familiar?

Narcissism, the kind that’s being glamorized, normalized, and algorithmically rewarded, is cut from the same cloth. It’s the belief that we are entitled to admiration, that our worth is proven through visibility, that our curated identity matters more than our actual impact. It doesn’t just disconnect us from others, it disconnects us from ourselves. It says: “You are only as valuable as your last post, your likes, your performance.” And so we perform.

Alone. Disembodied. Exhausted.

White supremacy and narcissism both teach us to view other people not as companions, co-conspirators, or kin, but as competitors, threats, or mirrors for our ego. Both reward dominance over others. Both discourage humility, vulnerability, interdependence. Both view accountability as an attack rather than an opportunity for growth.

And both, ultimately, leave us deeply, painfully alone.

Because connection - the real kind, the messy kind, the kind that heals and humbles and liberates - requires the exact opposite of both: empathy, honesty, a willingness to be changed by others.

I’ve been sitting with this for a while now. Watching how we glorify the influencer who documents their entire day while knowing nothing about the community around them. Watching how we celebrate the "self-made" individual while ignoring the labor, sacrifice, and stolen land that made that self possible. Watching how systems teach us to shine as individuals while they dim our collective power.

What if we stopped performing for the mirror and started listening to the people behind it?

What if we stopped striving to be seen and started striving to see?

Because maybe the loneliness so many of us feel isn’t a personal failing, but a symptom of a deeper cultural wound. One that tells us to rise above, rather than rise with.

And maybe healing that wound means confronting not just the narcissism in our feeds, but the white supremacy in our systems.

Because they are not separate.

They are reflections of each other.

And if we’re not careful, we’ll spend our lives performing connection for the camera—while missing the real, messy, human beauty right in front of us.

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